Joseph Belbruno Blog

  Navigated Menu Back Financial Times Financial Times UK 24 Feb 2026 Buttons.Search Options The ‘bot­lash’ move­ment is gain­ing momentum Mari­etje Schaake The writer is a fel­low at Stan­ford Uni­versity’s Insti­tute for Human-Centered Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence. She is the author of ‘The Tech Coup’ Settings Print Share Listen The more power AI com­pan­ies claim, the stronger a storm of pop­u­lar sen­ti­ment against its deploy­ment is swell­ing from all kinds of dir­ec­tions. Across the US, grass­roots move­ments are form­ing to protest against vari­ous excesses and the effects of the tech­no­logy, from par­ents furi­ous about the harms done to chil­dren with chat­bot com­pan­ions to com­munit­ies attempt­ing to block data centres and object­ing to com­pany con­tracts with gov­ern­ment agen­cies. Tech chief exec­ut­ives and the Trump admin­is­tra­tion thus far cal­cu­late that embra­cing dereg­u­la­tion will ensure Amer­ican AI dom­in­ance over geo­pol­it­ical rivals. But they ma...